Decades Later, a Cold War Secret Is Revealed

AP via FoxNews ^ | December 25, 2011 | Helen O'Neill

[mylife]

Whats her name Carly Fiorina destroyed HP.
They used to lead the world in scientific measurement.
Now its Agilent, and some of its good and some of it sucks.

[mylife]

We are now in a new world of development, using Software defined defined instruments. Matlab and Labview.

[mylife]

We are now in a new world of development, using Software defined instruments. Matlab and Labview.

[Jeff Chandler]

When I took Freshman Chemistry, it was the first year they replaced slide rules with calculators. I bought one of these awesome state-of-the-art beauties at an office supply house. It was used, and therefore only half price at $40.00.

Two years later I could have gotten a wristwatch calculator at the swap meet for five bucks.

[shove_it]

And before the Friden mechanical calculator, came the Comptomoter ...

... rows & rows of women operating this marvel of efficiency, with both hands. Now, dem wuz da good ole days!

[shove_it]

Ooops, make that comptometer.

[ExCTCitizen]

They still make thingsin CT still, but the liberals and unions are making it hard. Royal and Underwood used to make typewriters in Hartford, Columbia bicycles were made in Hartford, there a few auto companies (Charter Oak, Locomobile, Pope Hartford) in CT and guns.

[ExCTCitizen]

In 1974, in high school, I had a nice TI CALCULATOR. It was nice and I had it until 2003, when I lost it. The TI had LCD in it.

My dad was a computer engineerand Ihave a picture of him next to a 50's computer, my dad said today's watches are more powerful than that computer.

[Erasmus]

A room full of computers, as they were called back then.

Not the machines, the people.

[Erasmus]

My dad was a computer engineerand Ihave a picture of him next to a 50's computer, my dad said today's watches are more powerful than that computer.

It'd be great to see that photo.

I first got my mitz on a computer (an IBM 1620) briefly at my college in early 1963. It took about another decade for me to get fully immersed in computer software and eventually architecture.

[Erasmus]

I have an HP35s, which is pretty good, except for the PITA entry of digits A-F in hex mode.

[Lancey Howard]

The eyes in the sky never blink.

[Ax]

I was at San Vito Air Station too, 62-63. It was the 6917th RGM (USAFSS) then. We had the locals convinced that the FLR-9 was used to refuel submarines.

[Lancey Howard]

When I worked FDC for 105 and 155 gun lines in the Marines in the early ‘80s, I was the guy who handled the horizontal chart and my buddy Ron was the “computer”. He was fast with the books. It wasn’t long after that time that the Marines went to a Texas Instruments calculator with a special template the fit over the top.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Daffynition for the topic, thanks humblegunner for the link over in the other topic, and thanks Captain Beyond for pinging me to the other topic: Decades Later, a Cold War Secret Is Revealed The approach was not novel -- a similar, much smaller program was run during the Eisenhower administration, one can see one of the "cans" at the Air & Space museum. But 60 miles of film times 19 satellites, that's a lot of info. Bravo to our cold warriors! Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Domestic Church]

I had an SR10 in ‘73 but we also had to have the slide rule for some old school profs.

[wideminded]

In the 60's came the Friden calculator.

That model (STW-10) came out in 1949. The Apartment is from 1960.

During the Manhattan Project there was a unit that did calculations, managed by Richard Feynman. I have read that they used Friden calculators.

[Calvin Locke]

In B-school, 20 years ago, the HP-12c equivalent that was suggested, if RPN wasn’t your forte, was the Sharp EL-733

[Daffynition]

We talking about this at lunch; a friend who in charge of all the IT for Bloomberg was commenting on how technology has advanced so quickly ...can you imagine scooping-up film that has parachuted into the pacific Ocean? compared to now and what we can do from our smart phone?

[Bobalu]

During the Manhattan Project there was a unit that did calculations, managed by Richard Feynman. I have read that they used Friden calculators.

My God! can you imagine all of the whirring and clicking!